“Open City” by Teju Cole has won the 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction.

“Written in a deceptively quiet voice, Teju Cole’s remarkable and penetrating debut novel achieves what Kafka said art should; it chops the frozen sea within us,” said novelist and PEN award judge Andre Dubus III, quoted in a press release.

The award finalists are Amy Waldman for “The Submission” and Stephanie Powell Watts for “We Are Taking Only What We Need” (BkMk Press). BkMk Press is based in Kansas City at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Two writers will receive honorable mention: Marjorie Hudson for “Accidental Birds of the Carolinas” and Chad Harbach for “The Art of Fielding.”

2012 Best Translated Book Awards were announced.Â This is the fifth year for the BTBA, which launched in 2007 as a way of highlighting the best works of international literature published in the U.S. in the previous year.

The 2012 BTBA Fiction Longlist (in alphabetical order by author):

Leeches by David Albahari
Translated from the Serbian by Ellen Elias-BursaÄ‡
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret B. Carson
(Open Letter)

Demolishing Nisard by Eric Chevillard
Translated from the French by Jordan Stump
(Dalkey Archive Press)

Private Property by Paule Constant
Translated from the French by Margot Miller and France Grenaudier-Klijn
(University of Nebraska Press)

Lightning by Jean Echenoz
Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale
(New Press)

Zone by Mathias Ã‰nard
Translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell
(Open Letter)

Anniversary of the Final Link in the Transcontinental US Railway Completion – August 1870

Despite the “Golden Spike” Ceremony celebrated earlier in Utah, the actual final Link was made at 2:53 pm, Aug. 15, 1870 in Colorado. Come check out the history of railroads across the county in our library display this month.